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songwriter
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making those nice templates/layouts - 2/20/2003 11:49:27
I' ve started using frontpage once I found out what it was and have been enjoying it, but I' ve notice several sites that are made using frontpage, but their entire page layouts or templates....I don' t know which one it' s called, looks like they created somewhere else. So I then took a photoshop 7 class thinking that' s what I needed to learn how to make the cute shapes and images, but how do you put it all together with frontpage. For instance please go to www.epwm.org or go to www.laslas.com how did they make those nice templates or layout across the top and along the side. I checked the view source and it looks like a gif image, that was my reason for taking a photoshop class, but how do you make it all work. I would like to make more than just a plain site with just squares. Take a look at my first site that I did for a friend. www.freshstartalp.com Thank you in advance.
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swoosh
Posts: 1434
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From: Beaver Falls, PA
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RE: making those nice templates/layouts - 2/20/2003 13:01:24
Welcome to Outfront songwriter,
Those effects are done with images properly placed in table cells. Some are even background images for a table or cell. Some get the effect by placing rounded corner images to give the layout a more dynamic shape rather than just a square corner.
Photoshop is equipped to make such images. Then you put them all together by placing them correctly in a table or sometimes a nested table layout.
What you can do is import a page from those sites into Frontpage so you can see how the tables and images were properly placed
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Swoooosh
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songwriter
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RE: making those nice templates/layouts - 2/21/2003 12:50:49
Thank you so much, that does make a lot of since. Can you tell me the steps as to how I can import a page to see how their tables were created???
I hope I' ll understand what they did once I import
So am I on the right track by taking the photoshop classes??? I start my next class which will be the advance photoshop class next month. I simply thought seeing those kinds of template/layouts was something I would have to learn from photoshop. I didn' t know all I had to do was create the images and place them in my frontpage table cells.
Thank you so much
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songwriter
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RE: making those nice templates/layouts - 2/21/2003 12:52:57
What is a nested table layout? is that different from just tables??
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swoosh
Posts: 1434
Joined: 5/18/2002
From: Beaver Falls, PA
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RE: making those nice templates/layouts - 2/21/2003 13:27:30
On a page at a site that interests you on their layout design, click on File Save As in your browser window and save it to a location on your computer. Then open frontpage and open up a web and choose File>> Import....you can then navigate to the location that you saved the page at and import it into FP. You may want to import not only the page you saved but any folders that saved with it. You' ll know what I mean once you go through the process.
A nested table is a table within another table. For example you can create a table inside of a cell from a previous table created. Although you don' t want to get carried away with nesting tables for they will slow down the loading time of a page.
Hope this helps
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Swoooosh
Just Do It!
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songwriter
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RE: making those nice templates/layouts - 2/21/2003 15:43:27
Thank you so much for everything, you are totally awesome, I feel like a pro, I did just like you said, and WOW I was able to see the tables of a site created with front page to help me better understand what I need to do in photoshop.
I' m curious what are the benefits of creating tables within tables, why would some one do that?
Now that I know a little more about tables, I' ve notice that when I draw the tables verses creating the tables by selecting the number and rows, it' s a little different. Meaning when I draw a table, it will not allow me to do certain things that I would normally be able to do when I create tables by selecting number of row and columns. Why is that?
Lastly, what is a good size to make my table on my page, so my visitors will not have to use the scroll bar to read from left to right. Meaning when I make my first frontpage, what is a good width to start with?? Then I' ll follow suit placing everything else within that table.
I hope I' m not asking too many questions. Thank You.
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bobby
Posts: 11394
Joined: 8/15/1969
From: Seattle WA USA
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RE: making those nice templates/layouts - 2/21/2003 19:40:35
For graphics and page layout / design, this thread in the Graphics forum might be helpful:
http://www.frontpagewebmaster.com/tm.asp?m=102318&p=1&tmode=1&smode=1
As far as your other questions go...
Nesting tables can come in handy for tabularly displaying data... If you already use a table for your page layout you would need to create another table inside it to display a nicely formatted list of names, titles, and email addresses, for example.
Or a list of item numbers, descriptions, and prices... since your main table is there for formatting, you would need to create another table inside that one to handle the new data... (or at least it' s an option)
The reason tables delay your page load, is that the browser needs to process EVERYTHING in the table before it begins to display it...
So if you have a table nested inside another table the browser first starts to process the main table... then gets to the nested table and has to stop, and process the new table... then it goes back to the original table to finish processing it.
When all of that processing gets done it finally displays the result on the monitor... you can imagine how much slower a page would load if you had tables nested 5 or 6 deep! 
Drawing tables doesn' t give you the flexibility that you have when using FP' s table component... and when you learn how to hand code tables in HTML view you might notice that you are free' d up even more...
Sizing a table is usually best done with % instead of pixels... If you set your layout table to be 100% in width, it will stretch to fill the browser window. If you set the width to 750px, a person who still browses at 640 x 480 resolution would have to scroll sideways to see it all...
The main thing to remember when laying out tables is that all of your individual column widths must add up to the total width of the table, or you' ll have problems...
For example, if your table is set to 100% and you have 4 colums set to 20%, 40%, 25% and 25% (total of 110%) you' ll see problems in the browser (especially non-IE browsers)
And you' re right, Swoosh is awesome. [:p]
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songwriter
Posts: 52
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RE: making those nice templates/layouts - 2/25/2003 20:50:53
I would like to thank you all, for all of your help. Now since I' ve found out that people had been making their templates first in something like photoshop, now I understand a little better how to improve my site. Now I would like to know, is what people are doing when they make those templates for swish. I only know how to make nice words in my swish 2.0 but I don' t know the first of how to make templates. So do I do the same thing if I would like to make a template in photoshop and then import it into swish just like I would my frontpage? Go to my site and you' ll see what I' m only able to do using frontpage and swish, my site is www.cindesign.com but go my this flash site and look at the template, did that person first make their template somewhere else and then import it. www.edesignsbygoldie.com Thank you once again for all of your help. I' m trying to build web sites on the side to generate income for my recording project.
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